Saturday, June 21, 2008

Day 61 of our Green Year: The Ultimate Recycling

Well we are going headlong into our third month of going green and things are starting to really take off for us.
For today, we have decided to go green by joining Freecycle.org. Freecycle is a website that has actually been around for a few years, which allows people to essentially join the world's largest free garage sale.

Freecycle works through Yahoo Groups, and it gives the ability for people to put things that they want to get rid of up on the group for their area (our area is Trail, B.C.). Whether it is plant pots, a dresser, clothes or more, you can find it here and all you have to do is contact the person giving it away and pick it up.
As well, you can put up your things as well to prevent the things you own from ending up in the landfill. Remember, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and you don't want to contribute to our growing landfills by throwing things away, which someone else may want.

Think of how much waste goes to landfills that does not need to? How many times have you seen things like couches, pots, books and more at a landfill? There are about 10,000 landfills across Canada right now. That is about one landfill for every 3,500 people. As well, landfills account for 38 percent of all our methane emissions in Canada, which is 20 times stronger than greenhouse gases. While the items you get on Freecycle are not going to be producing methane, beginning by giving away what you would throw away, is a good start to preventing you from simply throwing everything away because it is easier. That way, landfills get smaller and more gets recycled.

Currently, Layla and I are looking for some things on the site to help us go green. We will see what we find!

As well, be sure to check out www.greenmagazines.com, where Layla and I will have ten tips on how to go green in each issue of Organic Lifestyles. They were nice enough to speak to us and we are looking forward to sending our message of how to go green to a wide audience!

Here is a photo of Layla doing the right thing by drying our clothes outside on the deck. Do you have any photos of you doing green things? Send them to us at crwbaird@gmail.com